Tonight there is an almost full moon. My calendar says that the full moon is on Sunday, but it is almost there.

I decided to open up the tripod that I purchased recently and try it out. I had been wanting a tripod for some time and never got around to buying one. I would always think about it when I needed one and then never follow through with the thought.

One time that I wished I had one was during the last eclipse.

This is from my post Eclipse Practice and was taken with the camera just held in my hand. I had some halfway decent pictures of the eclipse in my post The Blood Red Moon, but they would have definitely been better with a tripod.

I also think of a tripod when I take Fireworks pictures. Now I have one for next time 🙂

Tonight I tried different exposure settings to try and get a nice clear picture of the moon. You must remember that I only have a Small Camera. I also don’t know much about exposure times, F-stops, etc.. I am learning.

I took this picture with the exposure set at 1/800 with an F-stop of 4.9. The picture is pretty clear and you can see some detail in the craters.

This one is with an exposure time of 1/2000. I can tell that it is much darker since the sensor did not have as much time to gather light. However, it is still mostly in focus.

I think that this is the best one that I took tonight. The exposure time is a little longer at 1/320 and you can definitely see more detail. I guess it is not too bad as I only have an 8x mechanical zoom.

Now to figure out what to test the tripod with next. Maybe some more Night Sky pictures.

Steven